Moments to Remember: Leprechaun Mischief and Traps

 

The weeks leading up to St. Patrick’s Day are always a little chaotic. For years, we’ve been bothered by a mischievous leprechaun (he used to mess around in my classroom, too… the pest)! We’ve found toys scattered, drawers open and emptied, furniture turned upside down, and marker scribbled across our whiteboard and mirrors. For the most part, the kids are good about cleaning up… but today’s mess had them ready to put an end to it once and for all! They were sick of this:

 

And of all the other messes they had to clean up… so they decided to fight back by building leprechaun traps!

I told them that they could be exempt from their regular work if they would focus on their traps using any materials we had in the house and do it all themselves. {Not because I’m on a deadline or anything and it would buy me an hour or so of editing time while Logan napped… ahem, it was a good exercise in creativity… right?}

Trevor was very secretive… I think this was because the leprechaun had been messing with them throughout the day – rescattering things that had been cleaned up already, throwing rugs where they didn’t belong, opening and closing doors, tracking dirt into the house – he was afraid the leprechaun would see what he was up to.

He showed me his bait (LEGO coins and trophy cup) and then his finished design:

Molly, on the other hand, dove into it wholeheartedly, out in the open, and with egg cartons, glitter, glue, paint, blocks, and math manipulatives. She even sweet-talked Trevor’s friend Brody into helping her develop her strategy while he was over playing later in the evening:

 

We’ll have to wait and see if we catch our leprechaun this year – but it doesn’t really matter; I think we’ll all remember this adventure.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!